6 months after Geetika Sharma, mother kills self

The fight against the system — and former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda — took another life in the Sharma family.

Six months after her daughter Geetika committed suicide in August in the family’s Ashok Vihar home, Anuradha Sharma also killed herself on Friday — by hanging herself in the same room as her daughter.

For, she said in her suicide note, she could never get over the trauma of Geetika’s death. “We found a suicide note in the house. Anuradha Sharma was depressed. The note says Gopal Kanda and Aruna Chaddha were responsible for Geetika’s death,” said P Karunakaran, DCP, northwest.

According to the police, Anuradha — an accountant in the finance ministry — returned from work at 4.30pm. She was alone at home. Her husband Dinesh and sister-in-law Jyoti were the first to see the body when they entered using a spare key and informed the police.

Earlier, Geetika’s suicide note also alleged ‘mental harassment’ by her boss Kanda, then a Haryana minister and managing director of the MDLR group.

Geetika was an airhostess in the group’s airline venture. After the airline folded up, she tried to get away but was forced to stay back and shifted to the group’s educational institution in Gurgaon.

During the probe, it emerged that Geetika and her family were well known to Kanda and his wife and both families had gone on tours and pilgrimages.

After Geetika’s death, Kanda and HR chief of the group Aruna Chaddha were arrested for abetment to suicide. But the family feels its loss was irreparable and its honour sullied irreversibly.

A fresh case of abetment to suicide has been registered against Kanda and Chaddha at north Delhi’s Bharat Nagar police station.